with all this discussion of zard aerials and buffs and whatnot, i decided to number crunch to prove or disprove how bad it is for charizard
spoiler alert i got madder and madder as i looked at the data and thought about it and wrote about it COME ALONG FOR A RIDE WITH ME A RIDE TO BOTTOM TIER LANE
so there's a compendium of @
KuroganeHammer
's frame data (pls finish some day omg you legendary beast). the characters excluded are ike, jiggs, kirby, mario (identical to doc almost), MK, miis, GW, ness, olimar, rob, samus, sonic, tink, villager, wario, wii fit, zss.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...hOwju2Vq5a4irDPLvwfxuOKVGxk/edit#gid=95819857
http://kuroganehammer.com/Smash4
which includes values for landing lag, IASA, and other goodies. something odd when comparing zard's aerials with other characters...
zard's aerials look like this. the number columns stand for...
Start up/
Landing Lag/IASA/advantage on shield drop/advantage on out of shield options
N-air 8
22 60 -12 -20
F-air 8
32 47 -20 -28
B-air 14
36 46 -23 -31
D-air 18
35 52 -22 -30
U-air 12
22 46 -9 -17
for funsies, i decided to look through all the characters' aerials and make note of any other aerials that had 30 frames or more of landing lag (zard has 3, fair/bair/dair).
bowser bair 39
dair 40
falcon fair 30
dedede fair/dair 30
duck hunt dair 34
falco fair 32
greninja dair 32
link dair 32
lil mac dair 30
pikachu bair 30/dair 40
sheik dair 30
~only three characters on the list have more than one with 30+ landing lag
~just to remind you, zard has
3
~the moves italicized are 30 frames, so they aren't even quite as laggy as any of the 3 zard moves mentioned
~the moves underlined are plunging aerials that send the character downward, i assume if tink/zss/etc had pages, their plunging dairs would have similar numbers. they are obviously in a different class of aerial when it comes to landing lag because of the stall-then-plunge mechanic and the fact that they usually have a landing hitbox BECAUSE HEY THOSE MOVES GOTTA HAVE SOMETHING TO PROTECT THEIR LANDING AMIRITE
so among the characters in this list, the only aerials that are as laggy/laggier (32+) than zard fair/bair/uair and aren't plunging dairs are
~bowser bair (autocancels on short hop with a larger window than zard fair meaning you can fastfall near the end and still autocancel, stronger in damage and knockback than sweetspot zard bair)
~duck hunt dair (autocancels on short hop with a larger window so he can fastfall near the end too)
~falco fair (multihit with landing hitbox, plus nair is similar while having 15 frames of lag)
~link dair (can hit twice on shields when slowfalled, active for 50 frames)
~pika dair (has a landing hitbox, autocancels on short hop)
in comparison
~zard fair cannot short hop autocancel if you fastfall at all
~zard bair is frame 14 and sure as **** doesn't sh autocancel
~zard dair is frame 18 and sure as **** doesn't sh autocancel
~zard has the 6th worst max air speed in the game
~zard is tied for 17th worst slow and fast fall speed in the game
THIS IS A ****ING TRAVESTY
i was gonna try and play devil's advocate for the developers and theorize something about nair having single digit frames of vulnerability if you hit with the very end of it and then autocancel perfectly or rock smash being frame 5 armor but
**** that **** because that still doesn't excuse how
ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE CHARIZARD'S LANDING LAG (ESPECIALLY COMBINED WITH HIS AUTOCANCEL WINDOWS) IS COMPARED WITH EVERY OTHER CHARACTER which means that if you are trying to land against a shielding opponent (because why would they attack you and risk rock smash) and did not do that perfect nair autocancel then your reasonable options are to rock smash (good luck poking that shield) or flamethrower (slow and difficult to hit on someone shielding under you) or use a jump if you have one (LOL YOUR AIRSPEED IS TRASH AS ****) or dragon rush if you have customs (frame 20ish start up and fast moving characters can just chase behind you and punish) or **** it yolo do an aerial anyway (only fast ones are nair which covers your backside, fair which covers your front).
especially against characters that can chase your landing (WHICH IS A LOT OF THEM BECAUSE YOUR AIRSPEED IS TRASH AS ****), if the opponent stays grounded and chases your landing spots you MUST be able to space a flamethrower at them before they get to where you are because a good opponent can just put up their shield and eliminate every single safe option you have. except flamethrower is slow to come out and only covers the front of you and takes a little bit to angle at first and they can just roll toward you as it's starting up to punish the huge commitment on this move with a smash attack of their choice. perhaps fire fang is viable in matchups vs fast characters that can chase you like this just because it is faster than flamethrower and safer on shield than rock smash (it is really a combination of flamethrower and rock smash now that i think about it), except you can't flamethrower edgeguard, you can't do anything past your dtilt range besides side b, it has no armor, and blah blah blah. because of these things, charizard landing = a free grab for almost all of the cast if they just chase to where you will be and hold shield until you are about to land. charizard is the worst character in the game at getting from the air to the ground and he is a ****ing dragon with wings that presumably does this all the time because what else are those wings there for?
this is why charizard is a bad character
if this issue isn't fixed charizard will always be a bad character
/end every zard discussion ever
